Tom Gilroy’s “The Cold Lands” follows an 11-year-old boy, Atticus (newcomer Silas Yelich), who heads into the forest to fend for himself after the unexpected death of his mother (Lili Taylor). Atticus and his mother live in a secluded cabin in the Catskills in upstate New York, and her fierce self-reliance and general rejection of commercialized society and government interference instill in her son a quiet, thoughtful reserve and a difficulty in relating to the modern world around him, and that’s on top of the usual difficulties of being 11 anyway. When she suddenly dies, he flees into the forest, kicking off “The Cold Lands” and its unusual , strikingly beautiful rumination on living off the grid and struggling to make it in the modern age.

“The Cold Lands” is immaculately composed on a shot-by-shot basis, particularly in its first half. The slightly surreal visions and depictions of Atticus’ mother in the scenes of his independent survival in the woods are not exactly a welcome intrusion, underlining points that were well taken without them; that Atticus is a product of his mother’s upbringing was clear enough without her specter appearing every so often. But fortunately “The Cold Lands” doesn’t go to that well much, and its second half finds a return to the composed realism as Atticus meets a charming drifter (Peter Scanavino) who takes the boy under his wing in his aimless travels from odd job to odd job. Yelich is a distant and shy but empathetic figure in his lead role, giving a more than capable performance for a first-time young actor, and there’s an element of mystery to “The Cold Lands” that has lingered with me. The main arc is clear enough through the film’s elliptical ending, but the setting elevates the film to mythic, almost allegorical levels.

“All the Light in the Sky” (** ½)

Joe Swanberg has made a lot of films in his young career — he’s probably made one or two in the time since I saw one of his latest, “All the Light in the Sky” — and some are great and some aren’t really that great, but most of which I’ve seen is worth considering, including this one. Swanberg’s stripped-down, intimate, confessional style of filmmaking can be meandering, and more often than not features nudity that could be described as gratuitous, all to strip down any pretense of vanity on the part of his actors and bare not only their skin but their inner thoughts and anxieties. With “All the Light in the Sky,” Swanberg teams with actress Jane Adams, who stars in the center role as Marie, struggling with issues of encroaching aging, inadequacies in her profession and relationships with men and general malaise. Her niece (Sophia Takal), also an actress, comes to visit while Marie meets with an engineer to do research on an upcoming role in an independent film. As with the rest of Swanberg’s work, there’s not a tremendous amount of narrative momentum, more a meditation on the themes of fading away and growing older. This can make at points for a tough, slow sit, though some sparks are added with Larry Fessenden and Kent Osborne as friends and potential romantic interests of Marie. The result is lesser Swanberg, not up to the level of something like “Hannah Takes the Stairs” or “Nights and Weekends,” but rewarding enough in its own way.

“Kon-Tiki” (**)

Espen Sandberg and Joachim Ronning directed this handsome but dull fictionalized depiction of Thor Heyerdahl’s legendary 1947 scientific expedition, following the Scandinavian adventurer and his crew of five as they traverse 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, from Peru to Polynesia, on a balsa wood raft. The act itself is inspiring and exciting; the film it inspired is less so, though it’s a treat to see on the big screen, as its widescreen photography on the open ocean is often quite beautiful-looking and its special effects are convincing. (One can’t help but think of the slightly more beautiful-looking and more effects-heavy “Life of Pi,” even though the two movies, other than both being set at sea and featuring encounters with various sea creatures, have few other similarities.)

Heyerdahl, as portrayed by Pal Sverre Hagen, is a driven figure, stubborn in his insistence to prove his theory about where the indigenous people of Polynesia originally came from. He enlists a meek salesman friend (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) and four others to set sail, though one major problem of “Kon-Tiki” is that these figures are largely painted in broad strokes, if not interchangeable altogether. Other than the visual sensation, it’s difficult to get invested in “Kon-Tiki,” which isn’t a bad movie, just an extremely formulaic one that hopes audiences won’t mind. Interestingly, though, “Kon-Tiki” was a nominee for the best foreign language Academy Award this past year, though the version released in American theaters is entirely in English; research tells me that’s because the film was shot in both English and Norwegian, so one wonders if something was changed in translation.

“Stories We Tell” (****)

Sarah Polley, an Oscar-nominated actress, writer and director, was born in 1979, the result of a pregnancy late in life, to parents Michael and Diane Polley of Toronto. Her mother died suddenly of cancer in her childhood, and she grew up with her father before developing into the figure audiences have seen on screen in things like “The Sweet Hereafter” and the remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”

Now, we all have our stories like that and we all have certain narratives and prisms through which we see our lives. Who our parents were, who our friends are, where we come from – these things define who we are in our everyday. Then, when one of us dies, it’s left to those who were closest to us to continue our narratives, piecing them together from possibly divergent memories and different perspectives. With her brilliant film, Polley does just that to paint a clear picture of her family, specifically her mother. Some of the stories and revelations here will astound you.

“Stories We Tell” features interviews with Michael Polley, his children and step-children and a wide circle of Diane Polley’s friends and family in which they share stories of their lives with Diane and the secrets she held throughout her life. We all have secrets, you may think, and we all have families — what’s the allure of watching a documentary about someone else’s? Rest assured that a reason for watching Sarah Polley’s story becomes apparent as the film goes on, though I wouldn’t dare reveal just why. Coming from fiction film and having refined her storytelling technique, part of the brilliance of “Stories We Tell” is the way things are revealed, piecemeal and point by point through a mixture of interviews and archival footage.

Yet so many of the stories contradict one another that by its end “Stories We Tell” is equal parts memoir and treatise on the very nature of finding the truth, and in its last moments, the film examines its own reason for existing, and Sarah Polley’s motivations for making it. It elevates “Stories We Tell” beyond confessional portrait of a single family into a deconstruction of universal themes of what we remember about people and how we select what to share. It’s an extraordinary film and I recommend seeing it with as little foreknowledge of its turns as possible; we all tell stories to ourselves and others, but Sarah Polley is a born storyteller, and we’re fortunate to have the privilege that she shared this one with us in such a remarkable fashion.

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“The Cold Lands” (***)

Tom Gilroy’s “The Cold Lands” follows an 11-year-old boy, Atticus (newcomer Silas Yelich), who heads into the forest to fend for himself after the unexpected death of his mother (Lili Taylor). Atticus and his mother live in a secluded cabin in the Catskills in upstate New York, and her fierce self-reliance and general rejection of commercialized society and government interference instill in her son a quiet, thoughtful reserve and a difficulty in relating to the modern world around him, and that’s on top of the usual difficulties of being 11 anyway. When she suddenly dies, he flees into the forest, kicking off “The Cold Lands” and its unusual , strikingly beautiful rumination on living off the grid and struggling to make it in the modern age.

“The Cold Lands” is immaculately composed on a shot-by-shot basis, particularly in its first half. The slightly surreal visions and depictions of Atticus’ mother in the scenes of his independent survival in the woods are not exactly a welcome intrusion, underlining points that were well taken without them; that Atticus is a product of his mother’s upbringing was clear enough without her specter appearing every so often. But fortunately “The Cold Lands” doesn’t go to that well much, and its second half finds a return to the composed realism as Atticus meets a charming drifter (Peter Scanavino) who takes the boy under his wing in his aimless travels from odd job to odd job. Yelich is a distant and shy but empathetic figure in his lead role, giving a more than capable performance for a first-time young actor, and there’s an element of mystery to “The Cold Lands” that has lingered with me. The main arc is clear enough through the film’s elliptical ending, but the setting elevates the film to mythic, almost allegorical levels.

“All the Light in the Sky” (** ½)

Joe Swanberg has made a lot of films in his young career — he’s probably made one or two in the time since I saw one of his latest, “All the Light in the Sky” — and some are great and some aren’t really that great, but most of which I’ve seen is worth considering, including this one. Swanberg’s stripped-down, intimate, confessional style of filmmaking can be meandering, and more often than not features nudity that could be described as gratuitous, all to strip down any pretense of vanity on the part of his actors and bare not only their skin but their inner thoughts and anxieties. With “All the Light in the Sky,” Swanberg teams with actress Jane Adams, who stars in the center role as Marie, struggling with issues of encroaching aging, inadequacies in her profession and relationships with men and general malaise. Her niece (Sophia Takal), also an actress, comes to visit while Marie meets with an engineer to do research on an upcoming role in an independent film. As with the rest of Swanberg’s work, there’s not a tremendous amount of narrative momentum, more a meditation on the themes of fading away and growing older. This can make at points for a tough, slow sit, though some sparks are added with Larry Fessenden and Kent Osborne as friends and potential romantic interests of Marie. The result is lesser Swanberg, not up to the level of something like “Hannah Takes the Stairs” or “Nights and Weekends,” but rewarding enough in its own way.

“Kon-Tiki” (**)

Espen Sandberg and Joachim Ronning directed this handsome but dull fictionalized depiction of Thor Heyerdahl’s legendary 1947 scientific expedition, following the Scandinavian adventurer and his crew of five as they traverse 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, from Peru to Polynesia, on a balsa wood raft. The act itself is inspiring and exciting; the film it inspired is less so, though it’s a treat to see on the big screen, as its widescreen photography on the open ocean is often quite beautiful-looking and its special effects are convincing. (One can’t help but think of the slightly more beautiful-looking and more effects-heavy “Life of Pi,” even though the two movies, other than both being set at sea and featuring encounters with various sea creatures, have few other similarities.)

Heyerdahl, as portrayed by Pal Sverre Hagen, is a driven figure, stubborn in his insistence to prove his theory about where the indigenous people of Polynesia originally came from. He enlists a meek salesman friend (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) and four others to set sail, though one major problem of “Kon-Tiki” is that these figures are largely painted in broad strokes, if not interchangeable altogether. Other than the visual sensation, it’s difficult to get invested in “Kon-Tiki,” which isn’t a bad movie, just an extremely formulaic one that hopes audiences won’t mind. Interestingly, though, “Kon-Tiki” was a nominee for the best foreign language Academy Award this past year, though the version released in American theaters is entirely in English; research tells me that’s because the film was shot in both English and Norwegian, so one wonders if something was changed in translation.

“Stories We Tell” (****)

Sarah Polley, an Oscar-nominated actress, writer and director, was born in 1979, the result of a pregnancy late in life, to parents Michael and Diane Polley of Toronto. Her mother died suddenly of cancer in her childhood, and she grew up with her father before developing into the figure audiences have seen on screen in things like “The Sweet Hereafter” and the remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”

Now, we all have our stories like that and we all have certain narratives and prisms through which we see our lives. Who our parents were, who our friends are, where we come from – these things define who we are in our everyday. Then, when one of us dies, it’s left to those who were closest to us to continue our narratives, piecing them together from possibly divergent memories and different perspectives. With her brilliant film, Polley does just that to paint a clear picture of her family, specifically her mother. Some of the stories and revelations here will astound you.

“Stories We Tell” features interviews with Michael Polley, his children and step-children and a wide circle of Diane Polley’s friends and family in which they share stories of their lives with Diane and the secrets she held throughout her life. We all have secrets, you may think, and we all have families — what’s the allure of watching a documentary about someone else’s? Rest assured that a reason for watching Sarah Polley’s story becomes apparent as the film goes on, though I wouldn’t dare reveal just why. Coming from fiction film and having refined her storytelling technique, part of the brilliance of “Stories We Tell” is the way things are revealed, piecemeal and point by point through a mixture of interviews and archival footage.

Yet so many of the stories contradict one another that by its end “Stories We Tell” is equal parts memoir and treatise on the very nature of finding the truth, and in its last moments, the film examines its own reason for existing, and Sarah Polley’s motivations for making it. It elevates “Stories We Tell” beyond confessional portrait of a single family into a deconstruction of universal themes of what we remember about people and how we select what to share. It’s an extraordinary film and I recommend seeing it with as little foreknowledge of its turns as possible; we all tell stories to ourselves and others, but Sarah Polley is a born storyteller, and we’re fortunate to have the privilege that she shared this one with us in such a remarkable fashion.